IKEA Store

IKEA, according to their website is a furniture store. The store has a wide range of furniture very attractively displayed in their ‘actual use’ positions. The size of the store, display and price attracts people and once you enter you will surely find, if not the furniture, one of the thousands of accessories without which you can’t do and you never come out empty handed. It is a very huge store spread on two floors. The first floor contains more than half a dozen samples each, of fully set kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms and bedrooms.







The furniture, accessories and everything else is attractive but what impressed me was the placement of measuring tapes (made of paper), pencils and notepads everywhere within easy reach.

Whenever we go shopping for a ‘consumer durable’ viz a refriegerator, washing machine, cupboard, bookshelf or some such thing, we visit half a dozen shops, discuss and quarrel about the quality, price and utility of different makes and models, decide about a particular piece and when we are about to finalise the sale, get a doubt whether it will fit in the place meant for it at home or not. We tell the salesman that we need to measure the thing and ask him for a measuring tape. In most of the cases the shop never has a tape. I use my fingers, palm or forearm to measure the thing and make a guess but will always have to make another visit with my measuring tape. So, I was very much impressed with the provision of paper tapes, pencils and note pads all over the furniture section.



The store also has a food division which sells, cookies, chocolates, juices, coffee powder etc etc and a fast food restaurant. I ate a cone of frozen yoghurt which was very smooth and tasted better than any ice cream. And I could eat it without guilt, it being ‘yoghurt’! Unfortunately I never got to go there again and eat another cone. I did eat frozen yoghurt elsewhere but that did not taste as good.

When we set out of the house that evening, we planned to visit IKEA as well as Meijer, a departmental store located close by and after two hours in IKEA we had covered about half of it.

By then it was nearing 9PM and announcements were being made that the store would close at nine and asking patrons to hurry up with their purchases and so we hurried through the remaining part and returned home planning another visit to see the store in detail at leisure.